And So The River Bends
by Libek
Summary: Before the movies, when Sif and Thor are still young, almost but not quite become, they steal a moment for themselves. Happiness is a nebulous thing; quickly won, quickly lost.


_I have done it._

The words felt fragile, even in the caverns of her own mind. Sif licked her lips, shut her eyes, and dared to think them again. She had done it. She had succeeded. She had _won_.

In a few short hours, Lady Sif would be a name all of Asgard now knew as belonging not to a _girl_ but to a warrior, real and true and recognized. She could compete in any tourney, embark on any quest, and while some would still doubt, while some would still scorn, no one would be able to deny her accomplishments or her right.

After centuries of discouraging struggle, of endlessly taking three steps forward but two steps back, the full potency of this moment was almost too much to bear.

Sif wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed as tightly as she could, felt her heart hammering beneath her ribs and finally could take it no longer: she laughed aloud, a sound almost broken in its wild delight.

And she felt no shame in it, because that was why she had come here, to a secluded waterfall deep in the forest, where no one would hear or see her trembling joy.

"Was that really you?"

Or, at least, that had been the idea.

Sif spun, and it was an effort to make her expression fiercely reproving when so much of her still wanted to _sing_, but the sight of Thor standing there at the edge of the clearing was embarrassing enough to put real sting into her words. Of all the people to witness her momentary lapse. "Thor! What... _Why_-"

He lifted his open hands defensively, but Mjolnir was belted at his hip so she at least knew _how_ he had come to be here. "Peace, Sif." Then his lips turned up in a broad, guileless smile, and in spite of herself she felt some of her ire fading. "Sorry, sorry. Lady Sif. Or would you prefer Sir?"

"I may be a warrior now," she retorted tartly, "but rest assured: I am still every inch a woman."

Thor's smile shifted and softened. "And a beautiful one, at that."

Once, she had not particularly felt his compliments; she had _known_ she was beautiful, and more than that had thought beauty a petty thing to concern herself with. She had been almost _proud_ of her indifference to pride. Vain about her lack of vanity. Then Loki had cut off all her golden hair, had sliced her beauty from her, and though Sif would never admit it to him or anyone the real blow had been discovering how much she _cared_.

And ever since the first time Thor had taken her in his arms afterward and told her, soft, that with hair of blackest midnight instead of midday sun she was still beautiful - no, perhaps even more so... Ever since that time, she had felt every one of his compliments like a warm embrace.

Warm enough, certainly, to melt the last of her irritation and leave her smiling helplessly at him. "You have nowhere else to be, my prince?"

"I might ask the same of you," he said, and strode forward until they were inches apart. "It will be very embarrassing for the court if they call your name and no one comes out to be recognized."

He had a way of phrasing things like that, so that it was to the shame of stuffy nobility and not her _own_. Or _his_ own, more frequently. It was so inappropriate for a future king, but Sif could not find it in herself to rebuke him today.

"I will be back in plenty of time," she told him. Then smirked. "Especially with Mjolnir's aid." Her Whisperwind was a stallion of impressive speed, but no horse could match _flight_.

Thor blinked, then threw back his head and laughed at her audacity. In another moment, he had his arms around her waist and he was lifting her until her hands could have easily rested on his shoulders. "Certainly you would be, milady," he agreed, and the brightness this time was fierce.

He took her weight so easily, as if it were nothing. As if she were still a little girl. Sif reminded herself that it was a credit to his strength and that he could have hefted Volstagg just as easily, but something in her belly trembled all the same. Gone were the days of their childhood, when she had never failed to best him in any match. Thor was growing into his power, and someday...

But that day was not this day, and this day belonged to her.

Sif hooked her knees around his waist, then brought her heels to the back of _his_ knees and applied sharp pressure so that he grunted and buckled beneath her with a cry of protest and they both tumbled to the forest floor, laughing like children but still intent on the contest. As unsuspecting as he had been, Thor was quick now to push upright and spin them; she landed on her elbow and then he was above her, using his greater weight to pin her.

On many a maid, it would doubtlessly have ended the struggle, for he was solid like a mountain and not easily shifted, but Sif had not fought her way up through the ranks without learning well how to use an opponent's greater size and even strength against him. She lifted her hips, planting her feet firmly on the soft moss, and twisted beneath him so that she could crack her skull back into his jaw and drive him from her, howling.

Then they were both on their feet, circling each other warily, and her headbutt had caused him to bite something because there was the smallest trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, staining the gold of his beard, and as he wiped it off on the back of his hand something electric came alive in his eyes.

"No lightning," she admonished, recognizing the look, and his answering grin was full of teeth.

"I do not always control when it comes."

"Save _that_ for the Queen," Sif retorted archly. "_She_ believes you innocent when the rain ends her garden parties early and relieves you of the tedious duty of being introduced to relatives and visiting dignitaries because she is your _mother_."

Thor laughed, energy moving through his shoulders restlessly. "My control _isn't_ perfect, my mood sometimes-"

"Oh, I know all about your control," she retorted, and leapt at him so that he had no choice but to catch her.

Electricity could be dangerous, and it was dangerous now in his eyes. All of this, Sif recognized dimly, was dangerous. But he was still smiling even as she pinched his throat with her thighs. "Are you implying something?"

She smirked. "Your control isn't perfect," she agreed, "but you haven't brought down a storm by accident in a hundred years." She lifted her eyebrows, pointed. "In other areas, however..."

Another laugh, this time barked out, and his eyes narrowed but his lips curved up even higher. "You filthy liar," he said, and his large hands came up to settle on her lower back - and then her hips, and then he was wrenching her from his shoulders and she flipped midair, catching his shoulder with the tip of her boot.

Sif intended to land neatly across from him and taunt again, but her foot had barely touched down when Thor was barreling into her, and then her back found a tree and abruptly their faces were so close, she could smell the sweat on his skin.

The black swallowed the blue of his eyes and her heart was beating so loud in her breast.

How long, she wondered, had it been? It felt like forever and it felt like yesterday and both thoughts cut. Too long, either way; much too long.

"I tell no lies," she protested, her own voice so breathy she almost couldn't recognize it, and his grip tightened on her, "but... it _has_ been a while. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me."

Thor froze against her, and for an instant she thought perhaps - but then he _surged_ against her, and so easily they were kissing, his mouth hot and her tongue insisting, his hands on her hips and her hands in his hair, and all the time and all the words between them had dissolved to nothing.

He would be King one day, and she would be a warrior in hours, but for now he was still only Thor and she was still only Sif and neither of those people had anywhere to be, anything to do, any expectations to meet but their own.

"How can there be so many buckles," he grunted out, warm breath tickling her ear.

"O mighty Thor, laid low by a maiden's armor," she said breathlessly, pretending not to be just as frustrated by the fastenings on his riding leathers. Why had he _bothered_, he had not ridden here. "I should hate to see you - confronted by a _corset_."

"Corsets - are easier," he retorted. "They _rip_."

Half a second too late, he seemed to realize what he'd said; what it implied, and that perhaps he should have kept it to himself. Sif was forced to set take his hands in hers and firmly guide them to finish what they had started.

"It's fine," she promised him, because if it wasn't then _he_ was not to blame.

Still Thor hesitated, his gaze on her face searching, and when he looked like he meant to say something more she caught his jaw to pull him in for a bruising kiss.

She did not want him to apologize. She did not want either of them to apologize for _anything_ right now. She only wanted his hands on her bare skin, and they were so close to that.

"Sif..." Oh, she had forgotten the way his voice roughened, low and dark, but her body hadn't and the hot tingle that went through her was immediate; eager. She drew on his bottom lip and felt his hands tighten on her hips as he finally lost his train of thought completely. "_Sif_."

Yes, she thought. Yes, just like that. That was perfect. That was so much better.

Her fingers dug beneath his tunic, only more impatient, and he was quick to help her, lifting his arms so that she could yank it up over his head and then kissing her again even as his hands found the lacing at the front of her pants to tug loose.

When he found her wet, the shudder that went through him went through her as well, and then she was clawing at him and he was plunging into her and though she felt him hesitate twice more, as if he might have tried, there was nothing gentle about it.

She had so long insisted on that; with him, and with every other man. _Do not be gentle. Don't you dare be gentle. I am not delicate, I will not break, and I have no use for weakness._ For the first time, as he crashed into her and she crashed into the oak, Sif wondered what it would have been like. What _he_ would have been like.

But this time would not be different. She did not _want_ it to be different. Later - the next time - in the future...

When they had become the people they were going to be...

She gasped, threw her head back and clung to him as the bark rubbed her back raw. He buried his moan in her throat and his hips knocked into hers again, again, again like the tide breaking on jagged rocks, and - whatever he would have been like _gentle_ - he was exactly what she needed right now.

"Thor..." And _oh_, she had forgotten the way her own voice softened, high and thin, how much like a vulnerable little girl she could sound when she was too lost in his rhythm and her own pleasure to care any longer. "_Thor._"

His response was something panted, something she could not quite catch, and then he made a frustrated sound and struggled to get his hands beneath her thighs, urge them up higher on his waist so he could get - deeper, impossibly deeper, _ah_.

_Don't you want to?_ he had asked once, so young and so innocently curious. _See what it's like, I mean! We're probably the only ones who haven't, so we should-_

And then she had punched him, hard enough to rattle his teeth, and hadn't forgiven him for months. Had almost - almost - dragged some other boy into her bed first, just for spite.

Thor had known better, back then, than to try to apologize; but she had known he was sorry, all the same. Eventually, he had even been sorry for the right reasons.

"_Sif_-"

Thick and urgent and almost, almost, almost.

Sif held on tight to him, shivering, and felt it crest, the rush of pleasure and warmth right down to her curled toes, and then she was resting against the trunk, feeling the sweat cool on her skin while he rutted into her body, all the easier now with the slick of her release. It brought - a faint smile to her lips.

Almost, almost, _almost_...

But in many ways, this was her favorite part. She had such unobstructed view of his face, flushed with exertion, brows creased and eyes shut and all attention on the sensation of her, on the way they fit together. Sometimes, she remembered, he would jut the tip of his tongue between his lips, biting on it as he focused.

Or distracting himself from the pleasure.

She turned her head, brushing her lips over his ear, and whispered, "Is this - your perfect control?"

_That_ pulled a moan from him, and then he must have bitten down harder on his tongue than he meant to because he was swearing, his fingernails suddenly sharp in her flesh - but the next moment he trembled, his hips jerking against hers as he came in a hot torrent, his seed flooding into her, and _oh_ she wished she had thought of that earlier, the sudden slackening of his expression was so beautiful.

Then clearing was silent, except for the ragged sound of their breathing and the war drum of her heart. They were so close that she could feel his pulse, too, pounding against her shoulder.

"My control was - perfect _enough_," Thor told her skin.

His voice was muffled and husky, but somehow still that of a pouting child. Sif smiled in spite of herself.

Someday, this large child would be King. Her king.

"Perfect enough," she agreed, combing her fingers through his hair and letting her eyes slip shut.

They should have pulled apart; she should have stepped into the stream, used its clear water to rinse the sweat and their fluids from her flesh. How long she had before they called her name now, she could not say. Even with Mjolnir, the sooner they left...

Sif stayed where she was. No, not just yet. She had waited for this for centuries. She could wait a few minutes more.

Just a few minutes more.

But Thor could not leave well enough alone, and it had only been a few seconds when he ventured, "Sif..."

"Don't be a fool," she said without opening her eyes.

He paused, then chuckled softly. "...I was not aware I had any choice in the matter."

She shook her head, wondered if he was looking at her, and reluctantly murmured instead, "Think of it as your gift to me. Aren't I entitled to one, today?"

That seemed to give him pause. "A gift," he repeated at last. "I like that idea."

Of course he did. Thor was many things, not all of them _good_, but boundless generosity was one of his finer traits. Even the stupid boy who had hurt her had only wanted to share an exciting new thing with his childhood friend. Sif smiled a little to herself and reluctantly began to push him away.

"Get off me," she said. It came out much more softly than she meant it to, so she said the next too fiercely in compensation: "We _must_ get ready."

"No," Thor argued, undaunted, even as he eased back. "_You_ must get ready. Only one of us has anywhere to be this morning."

Sif gave him a sharp look - was he joking, or - yes, she saw the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, good. "Don't be difficult," she warned.

He laughed, deep in his throat. "I shall endeavor, milady," he promised, lifting his eyes to her. "Provided, of course, that Mjolnir cooperates."

They were still so close, and it would have been so easy to kiss him. She wanted to. Suddenly, she ached to.

She didn't.

"Mjolnir is yours," she told him, flicking her hair out of her face and turning away to stride into the water. "_Make_ it cooperate."

His laughter rumbled behind her like banked thunder, and she scrubbed her skin with her fingers and the cold, imagining how it would feel to hold tight to him while they flew through the sky, over the forest and home.

Imagining how it would feel to let go, once they landed.

_I have done it._ She thought the words again, willing into them all the excited triumph she had felt before, and hated that it came hollow. Or, perhaps, hated that it came at all.

Why had she ended this? Why had she pushed him away, why was she _still_ pushing? They could have had this. They could have had everything and still had each other.

But that, Sif knew, was a lie. A lie she had allowed herself to believe, back when she had been young enough to choose what would be true instead of accepting what _was_.

She would never have been Lady Sif, Warrior Proud, her name and all else her own; she would only have been _his_ lady, his queen.

The Queen could not compete in tourneys. The Queen could not embark on quests. The Queen's only accomplishment would ever be to temper her husband and guide his hand.

A shadow of true glory.

And suddenly she had seen it all too clearly: her future on Thor's arm, embroidered gowns and servants who did nothing but brush her hair straight each day, smiling while he introduced her to the lords and ladies of the realm, hand clenched in her skirts instead of round the hilt of a sword. It would have been death, only without the promise of Valhalla at its end.

Sif waded into the deepest part of the stream and there she ducked down, beneath its rippling surface, and let the things she could not have wash away.

Let the Sif she was wash away, so that the warrior could rise.

Because that day _was_ this day, and this day belonged to only one of them.

She comforted herself, as she had before, that she was not losing Thor - he was waiting for her even now, his eyes averted without having to be asked. They would be friends from now until their deaths, and when that day came she might yet find herself beside him at the eternal table. They would be together.

In every way save one.

And for that, she would have this memory: this gift.

This farewell.

"Don't drop me," she told him waspishly when they were ready to depart, and if his smile was still too bright, his eyes still flinting with electric light, then she knew both would fade in time. As they had faded before.

"I would never dare," he replied, soft, and as she held her breath he lifted his arm and they left the ground behind.


End file.
